QUEST FOR THE GOLD PLATES - Thomas Stuart Ferguson's Archaeological Search for the Book of Mormon

Cover has some light edge and corner wear. ; Thomas Stuart Ferguson is best known among Mormons as a popular fireside lecturer on Book of Mormon archaeology. As radio stations aired in the late 1980s and repeated a decade later: In 1946, California lawyer Tom Ferguson rolled up his sleeves, threw a shovel over his shoulder, and marched into the remote jungles of southern Mexico. Armed with a quote by Joseph Smith that the Lord had "a hand in providing the Book of Mormon true in the eyes of all the people, " Ferguson’s goal was: Shut the mouths of the critics who said such evidence did not exist. Ferguson began an odyssey that included twenty-four trips to Central America, eventually resulting in a mountain of evidence supporting Book of Mormon claims. Like a modern-day Heinrich Schliemann, who located the cities associated with Homer’s Iliad, Ferguson devoted his life to locating the actual cities mentioned in the Book of Mormon. But by the late 1970s, Ferguson had become convinced that the Mormon scripture was not based on real, historical events. After the discovery of Ferguson’s office files, which document the adventurer's studies in the 1970s and 80s, archivist Stan Larson was able to piece together Ferguson’s own analysis of the archaeological evidence Ferguson himself gathered, first as a defender and then as a disbeliever in the literalness of the Book of Mormon narratives. ; 6" x 9"; 305 pages. …